Palm Sunday

For Palm Sunday we made a palm banner. It reads, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD" The kiddos placed their hand prints making palms for the banner. To finish up the bottom reads, "Hosanna!"

Holy Week 2009

Blessed Holy Week to everyone. For the past few weeks we've been reading Benjamin's Box and using the corresponding resurrection eggs. The kiddos have loved reading this story and having something to touch and feel. It helps them to really understand the story of Holy Week.

To dovetail this, we made a resurrection table. On the table it includes the palms we got on Palm Sunday, a donkey and a palm tree. Princess wanted to know what a palm tree looked like. LOL! For Holy Thursday we included a plate and cup with bread and a picture of the last supper. And a small bowl with a cloth to symbolize the washing of the feet. For Good Friday I have a statue I inherited from my Grandma depicting the crucifiction. For Holy Saturday we made a tomb with a moveable stone to be opened on Easter.

American Girl Doll Party on a Shoestring Budget

Instead of going to the American Girl Doll store to have a tea party, which can run one a whole lot of money. And when you have a bunch of kids under the age of 5 who want to have a tea party at the American Girl Doll store, what do you do? You have the party at home. That's exactly what we did one cold February day. We called up a few of princess' friends and invited them over for a tea party with their dolls. The kids enjoyed sipping hot cocoa from plastic tea cups and playing dolls. We used fancy napkins and decorated our own place mats and enjoyed pb and j sandwiches cut in fourths. At the end of the day we handed out goodie bags and everyone went home having had a great time.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope everyone enjoyed the day. We certainly did. The kids made cookies...chocolate chip to be precise. The kids both enjoy cooking and baking. I will admit it is very, very time consuming, but well worth the effort. Not only is there the fun bonding time, but there are lots of lessons to be learned.

First, following directions of the recipe. Usborne Books at Home has a line of cookbooks for young children and adults too who are learning to cook. The instructions are very simple and many have a picture for the pre-readers. Also, if you have children with food allergies, I have found it fairly easy to substitute the allergic ingredient with the non allergic ingredient and the end result is delicious.

Second, basic math skills can be easily incorporated with the different measurements. And for the younger ones, simple counting, one to one correspondence, lessons in size difference as well.

Third, delayed gratification is another important lesson learned. This is a hard one for the first time bakers to understand. They think their cookies should be done instantly. The first time we baked cookies with my then 2 year old, she could not understand why she could not have her cookie NOW. It did open up a very basic science lesson on how the oven works.

Whatever cooking/ baking you decide to do with your children most importantly enjoy the process and the end result.

Treasure Box Book Paper Flowers

The kids are really enjoying the Treasure Box Books by the Maryknoll Sisters. Included in each book are various craft activities. The activity we did this particular day is the paper flowers. We collected branches from the yard, glued the tissue paper on them, and displayed them in a vase.

Days of the Week

This week we focused on the days of the week. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I created a lapbook from various things I found on the internet. On a side note, I love lapbooks. Not only are they educationally challenging for the kids, but they have the ability to revisit the information whenever they feel like it.

Religion we focused on the Trinity. A great go-along is 3 in 1 by Joanne Marxhausen. It discusses the Trinity and compares the Trinity to an apple. The three parts of an apple (peel, flesh, and core) are all still part of one apple. It was a concrete way of explaining that the trinity has three parts (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), yet is still only one God.

Summer's Official End

As this Labor day weekend is coming to a close, it's time to start thinking about the upcoming school year. [Truth be told, today is not the first day I've thought about it] For the school year I purchased Catholic Heritage Curriculum Kindergarten. We will do this in combination with several other fun things over the course of the next two years. It looks to be fun and dd is looking forward to learning how to read, write, and in her words, "doing a project." She's been asking me to go over all the things she will learn this year and is in love with learning. As for ds, I will use letter of the week prep program. He's the monkey see monkey do type of kid and wants to do everything his big sissy does. This picture was taken of our great pumpkin that just keeps growing. We actually have 8 others like this growing on other plants. Who knows how large they'll be by Halloween.